What do you think makes a bad game?
- Thread starter brodie21
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Gotta go with "Not being fun".
What makes something fun? Hard to say, fun could be anything from having particularly satisfying weapons to gun people down with (Painkiller) to having a story which actually engages me, makes me like the characters and makes me think (Baldur's Gate).
Things like: Having a bad control scheme, being a clichestorm... tend to make things less fun.
Simply, a game that isn't fun is when the good factors are outnumbered or overshadowed by the bad ones.
What makes something fun? Hard to say, fun could be anything from having particularly satisfying weapons to gun people down with (Painkiller) to having a story which actually engages me, makes me like the characters and makes me think (Baldur's Gate).
Things like: Having a bad control scheme, being a clichestorm... tend to make things less fun.
Simply, a game that isn't fun is when the good factors are outnumbered or overshadowed by the bad ones.
I work at subway. I tell customers that order a chicken and bacon ranch ($9.95 at my store here in Australia) without any salad or anything that they're essentially paying for chicken, bacon and bread, which can be acquired for half the price at any of 4 of the chicken joints in the surrounding 1km.
And one of my faves.
Things that fuck up games and examples of them:
1. Poor controls or mechanics
Red Ninja,
San Andreas's shooting missions,
San Andreas's Flying Missions
Dead Space's meteor section
God of War's infamous spinning blade columns
2. Bad AI (both enemy and friendly)
Oblivion's Combat,
Dead Rising's friendly AI
3. Unclear Objectives/ bad signposting
Wandering around rooms in F.E.A.R. for 20 mins trying to find the way out
4. Cheap Difficulty Spikes
Reavers/ Satt Comm section in gears 2
5. Repetition/ lack of checkpoint system
All GTA games
Oblivion's endless Ayleid dungeoms and Mines and caves...
1. Poor controls or mechanics
Red Ninja,
San Andreas's shooting missions,
San Andreas's Flying Missions
Dead Space's meteor section
God of War's infamous spinning blade columns
2. Bad AI (both enemy and friendly)
Oblivion's Combat,
Dead Rising's friendly AI
3. Unclear Objectives/ bad signposting
Wandering around rooms in F.E.A.R. for 20 mins trying to find the way out
4. Cheap Difficulty Spikes
Reavers/ Satt Comm section in gears 2
5. Repetition/ lack of checkpoint system
All GTA games
Oblivion's endless Ayleid dungeoms and Mines and caves...
Genre failure. Some examples would be Resident evil 5 for not being even near a survival horror game, and F.E.A.R 2 for trying to make us forget the fact that it's just a regular fps with a bullettime mode when it tries to be a horror game. Seriusly, you DON'T bring in any army guys in a horror game.
One way to define a bad game might be that even a comparatively forgiving player finds him/herself constantly going "why didn't they fix this?" or "what reason could they possibly have had for making this design decision?" or "this game isn't even finished..."
There are a lot of ways to screw games up. Like:
Contradicting the story with the gameplay - for instance, you play an allegedly nice and kindly guy who kills every living thing that opposes him, be it human, animal or alien...
Failing to make the game fun - making the player do a variety of pointless things just to rack up the "70 hours of gameplay" or whatever they choose to put on the box. Huge mistake, I'm sure just about anyone would rather pay for a short, fun game that they'd be likely to play and enjoy several more times, than for a game they get sick of long before they get anywhere near finishing it...
Offending the player - this may be difficult with some players, but take for instance those games that REALLY rub it in when you die or otherwise lose the game, THEN kick you back to the beginning of a long level full of very difficult challenges that you've already overcome. Red Ninja did this; besides its nigh-on worthless controls and camera, the game features difficult combat, a number of extra tough, extra strong enemies to fight, far too few checkpoints and no quicksave or anything like that, as well as instant death from a variety of things; jumping puzzles, dodgy wallrunning and confusing level design, mainly. Plus the bosses are viciously difficult, often include some gimmick like "kill him before he reaches your friend" or "avoid his attacks until he uses the one that lets you damage him with a strangling move", and if you die you have to start over from the beginning of the fight again. That wouldn't be too bad, if only they didn't have about a hundred times your health, far better moves and the aforementioned gimmick strengths (read that as "invulnerabilities) and weakness(es, as if you're ever that lucky)...
...Come to think of it, a bad game is Red Ninja.
/rant
There are a lot of ways to screw games up. Like:
Contradicting the story with the gameplay - for instance, you play an allegedly nice and kindly guy who kills every living thing that opposes him, be it human, animal or alien...
Failing to make the game fun - making the player do a variety of pointless things just to rack up the "70 hours of gameplay" or whatever they choose to put on the box. Huge mistake, I'm sure just about anyone would rather pay for a short, fun game that they'd be likely to play and enjoy several more times, than for a game they get sick of long before they get anywhere near finishing it...
Offending the player - this may be difficult with some players, but take for instance those games that REALLY rub it in when you die or otherwise lose the game, THEN kick you back to the beginning of a long level full of very difficult challenges that you've already overcome. Red Ninja did this; besides its nigh-on worthless controls and camera, the game features difficult combat, a number of extra tough, extra strong enemies to fight, far too few checkpoints and no quicksave or anything like that, as well as instant death from a variety of things; jumping puzzles, dodgy wallrunning and confusing level design, mainly. Plus the bosses are viciously difficult, often include some gimmick like "kill him before he reaches your friend" or "avoid his attacks until he uses the one that lets you damage him with a strangling move", and if you die you have to start over from the beginning of the fight again. That wouldn't be too bad, if only they didn't have about a hundred times your health, far better moves and the aforementioned gimmick strengths (read that as "invulnerabilities) and weakness(es, as if you're ever that lucky)...
...Come to think of it, a bad game is Red Ninja.
/rant
Judging which games are good and which are bad is a thorny issue for me. Some of my favourite games - like Oblivion, Fable 2, Fallout 3 and Mass Effect - have had some distinctive flaws, but none of them stopped me from loving the game. Assassin's Creed was flawed to a greater degree, but still a lot of fun. Mirror's Edge was greatly flawed in a lot of respects, and a brilliant art style couldn't save it from being totally unplayable.
General rule of thumb though, bad dialogue, broken frame rates, bad controls and obnoxious difficulty curves tend to be the biggest things which turn me off games.
General rule of thumb though, bad dialogue, broken frame rates, bad controls and obnoxious difficulty curves tend to be the biggest things which turn me off games.
A shallow storyline with shallow characters. You can have all the graphical brilliance and fluid combat with effective level design.. but if you don't know why you're killing those aliens and you don't care that she's been kidnapped... it kills the game.
